by Shane Sody
The Australian Heritage Council is being urged to intervene in what’s increasingly being acknowledged as the most blatant commercial sellout of your Park Lands.
Premier, Peter Malinauskas has been spruiking artist’s impressions of a 38-storey office tower on the former Festival Plaza in Park 26, as if it was something of which Adelaide could be proud. He’s copped plenty of flack from Adelaideans who can see through the spin.
Image: SA Government
The Australian Heritage Council gives advice to the Federal Minister for the Environment on matters that have the potential to affect sites on the National Heritage register.
The proposed 38-storey Walker Corporation Tower if it goes ahead, would negatively impact TWO National Heritage-listed items:
Your Adelaide Park Lands; and
State Parliamentary buildings (both old and new Parliament House)
Image: SA Government
Accordingly, 24 influential and concerned Adelaide citizens have joined together asking the Australian Heritage Council to investigate and refer the proposed tower for formal assessment under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
The signatories include:
Hon CJ Sumner AM former Attorney-General SA
Phil Harris Architect and AIA joint Gold Medallist (2014)
Elizabeth Vines OAM, B.Arch (hons), FRAIA, M.ICOMOS (fmr member AHC 2021-2024)
Christel L Mex PhD Norwood Councillor past pres CASA
Elbert Brooks. BA LLB GDLP MBA, fmr Cr City of Adelaide
and many others. Here is their letter: (PDF, 4 pages, 542 Kb)
Image: SA Government
What can you do?
Submissions to the Australian Heritage Council can also be from individuals. Here is a sample message that you can copy and paste, if you wish:
To: Hon Bob Carr, Chair, Australian Heritage Council
Email: AHC.Secretariat@dcceew.gov.au
Objection to proposed 38 Storey Tower Two on Adelaide’s Festival Plaza
This submission concerns two National Heritage items:
Adelaide’s Parliament House, and
the Adelaide City Plan and Park Lands.
State Parliament is National Heritage-listed because of its significance as the birthplace of key democratic milestones—female suffrage, the secret ballot, and one vote–one value, amongst others such as (then) aboriginal suffrage.
The proposed 38 storey building would overpower and largely hide Parliament House which should be a globally revered place. It strips it of context by visually separating it from the Plaza. Its spectacular rear blue marble wall would be largely hidden,
The effective extension of the CBD onto the Plaza, onto the Adelaide Park Lands, would represent a massive distortion of Light’s City plan, and represent more misuse of Park Lands.
This is a huge private office development on public land.
This development should be a Controlled Action and referred to the Australian Heritage Council as outlined in the relevant legislation - the EPBC Act and the Australian Heritage Council Act.
Background
Given that a political decision was publicly announced in April 2024, there was some cynicism about the subsequent bureaucratic process of formally seeking public comment on a Planning Code Amendment that would endorse what State Cabinet had already decided.
More recent articles here:
The full story about the commercial giveaway of your Festival Plaza goes back to 2015. Read the full sorry story here: https://www.adelaide-parklands.asn.au/festival-plaza
Premier Peter Malinauskas unveiling the proposed second new Festival Plaza tower on 9 April 2024. (ABC News: Rory McClaren)
An artist’s impression (from April 2024) of the proposed second Walker Corporation tower, 38 storeys, (left) next to the newly constructed 29-storey tower, both on Festival Plaza, part of your Adelaide Park Lands.
Your Festival Plaza could have been easily and cheaply returned to Park Lands to celebrate Adelaide’s world-unique asset.
A design competition for this purpose was run in 2015, by the then-leader of the Greens Party in SA, the Hon. Mark Parnell:
Design by Arnie Blanden - just one of the several winning designs in the competition hosted by former Greens MLC Mark Parnell.
The author of this article, Shane Sody, will be retiring on 27 April 2025 after eight years as President of the Adelaide Park Lands Association. He is also the editor of the semi-monthly newsletter, "Open Green Public".
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https://adelaideparklands.m-pages.com/YWRrGW/adelaide-park-lands-assn-mailing
